If you are the owner of a Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone and have been counting the days until the Android 4.0 update was available for your device; the wait is almost over. Rumors pegging March as being the launch date have circulated for a while, and now we have official confirmation.

Samsung Israel posted on its Facebook page that it expects the Ice Cream Sandwich update to start rolling out on handsets in Israel on March 15. The post gives no indication of when the update might be expected in other countries. The update will presumably work on all unlocked international versions of the smartphone.

Yes, this is for the international version, not the versions released to the US.

Samsung is beginning to piss me off with their phone strategy. They need to stop bowing to the carriers and release one phone for everyone.

I still can't find cases for my AT&T GS2. Most of the cases that are being sold for the AT&T version don't fit correctly and almost always block the second noise cancelling mic next to your head phone jack (check your own if you have one.)

As for ICS, who knows when the American carriers will get it. A month later? Never? Who knows? This is probably the most frustrating part of Android.

well, most people (like me) wont care much about when US careers will launch their ICS updates.the catch here is official ics rom is being released and as it releases, all devs will jump in again and see if its easier to port this time.

No, this is the most frustrating part of US phone carriers. They are the ones that delayed the release of the phone for 6 months and added their pointless and irritating tweaks. You also can't use the official 2000mAH extended battery.

Getting it 6 months before any US carrier had a decent Android GSM phone was also a plus. But yes there was a price premium that was covered by getting a iPhone 4s and selling it unlocked for $600 paid for the difference.